


Become What You Are

by transubstantiate



Series: Bucky!Cap [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:39:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transubstantiate/pseuds/transubstantiate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But then Colonel Phillips calls out “Grenade!” and everyone hits the deck, everyone except for Bucky. He doesn’t duck for cover, no sir, he lunges for the little green ball and snatches it up and hurls it away over the camp.</p>
<p>It detonates mid-air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Become What You Are

He was born James Buchanan Barnes, in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, the United States of America, in the Year of our Lord 19-

_Stop. That’s not how it goes._

_And how should it go, if not like that?_

He was only ever James Buchanan Barnes to a few, to his parents, to the draft-

_It’s still wrong. He was never James Buchanan Barnes._

He was Bucky. He was Bucky because that’s what Steve called him.

_Yes._

He is Bucky. New York, New York.

_Good._

Bucky looks out for his sister. He does what his parents tell him to do. He works hard, brings in money after school. He knows that there are things that are more important than he is.

He doesn’t hesitate to do what is hard if it means doing what is right.

_What does he think is right?_

What he can stomach in the darkest hours, when he’s alone with himself, when he has nothing and no one to answer to but whatever it might be that he calls his soul.

_Bad._

He laughs when his sister cries, sometimes. He’s cruel to her in the little ways that older brothers are cruel to their younger siblings.

He steals things. Small things, here and there. Things he doesn’t need or even want. A ribbon, a candy, once a pocket watch.

_Why?_

He likes the thrill.

_What’s the worst thing he ever stole?_

Time. The greatest theft was always time, love.

_Worse._

Bucky watches. He stands back and waits for the world to unfold itself around him before taking part. 

And he rarely does.

At school, at work, he sees chaos and violence, but holds himself away. Maybe he thinks, ”it’ll get me in trouble if I go over there,” and maybe he thinks “it’s got nothing to do with me,” but he isolates himself either way.

_Better._

It starts with Steve. It starts with the world coming into order, coming into focus, it starts with the first time Bucky wades into a fight that he has no part in and hauls a writhing scrap of a boy out whole.

It starts with the first time Steve points to a bully and tries to explain to Bucky why it’s better for the boy to take out his aggression on them than the small child he’s tormenting.

_Does Bucky understand?_

No.

_Does he learn?_

Maybe. Maybe not. But he starts to involve himself in the world, bit by bit, after that.

_What about the dreams?_

What about them?

_Why does he have them?_

He has them because he has remade himself into the shape of a protector, and he can’t shake the fear that he will never be good enough, never be there at the right time, that he will always be late, always be wrong.

_Tell me about the war._

Going to war re-orders his world for the second time, forces him to re-learn things like standing on his own feet. At first it’s hard, clean action. This he can handle. Then the terror and dirt eat away at the sides of his soul, but he shores his defenses up every night and pretends that the dreams aren’t bleeding men and bullets and desperate pain.

He builds walls within himself.

And then a doctor and an SSR agent come combing through his unit and his world shifts again.

_Where do they take him?_

Boot camp. Again.

He does sit ups and push ups and runs and flirts with Agent Carter and tries not to backtalk Colonel Phillips.

Dr. Erskine watches him and shakes his old grey head.

But then Colonel Phillips calls out “Grenade!” and everyone hits the deck, everyone except for Bucky. He doesn’t duck for cover, no sir, he lunges for the little green ball and snatches it up and hurls it away over the camp.

It detonates mid-air.

He turns around, faces his future.

_He is selected._

He is selected.

Dr. Erskine comes to him the night before with a bottle of Schnapps and drinks half of it right in front of him. “You are not right,” the doctor says. “You are not perfect. But you are better than nothing. You are our stopgap.”

And Bucky enters the capsule with those words ringing in the back of his mind.

_He thinks about those words a lot, later._

Yes. After he loses everything, after he awakens in the middle of a world he can’t recognize, Erskine’s words haunt him. He sees respect, admiration in the eyes of the men and women around him. He sees his face and his shield plastered across billboards and he wallows in the knowledge that he is just a man, that he was never what the program really needed, that he was only ever-

_Better than nothing._

Yes.

_And he doesn’t see what a gift he is? He doesn’t see the way he inspires those around him? The ordinary people? The ones who are neither good nor bad, the ones who do what is necessary, the ones who work long days to care for others?_

_The ones who have a bright shining star to protect?_

No.

All he can see is his own pain.

_Maybe that’s always the way of things, then._

Maybe.

Maybe not.

He can learn, still. He’s not so old yet that he is afraid of knowledge and growth. 

Bucky is a survivor, first and foremost, love. He’ll make it through the darkness.

He’s already begun to step towards the light.


End file.
